


God and Angels Weep

by just_another_classic



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), F/M, Therapy, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 06:36:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19312636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_another_classic/pseuds/just_another_classic
Summary: Steve loses everything in the Decimation. This is what happens between losing his family and getting them back. (Endgame Canon Divergence)





	God and Angels Weep

**Author's Note:**

> So it turns out I was so annoyed by Endgame's, uh, endgame for Steve that I decided to write Steve/Sharon fic. Anyway, here's one way it could has played if the writers weren't so obsessed with sending this dude back to the 1940s.

* * *

__"They say we are asleep until we fall in love  
We are children of dust and ashes  
But when we fall in love we wake up  
And we are a god and angels weep  
But if I die here tonight,  
I die in my sleep."

_ - _ 'Dust and Ashes'  
Natasha, Pierre, and The Great Comet of 1812

* * *

 

 

All it takes is losing a fight for Steve to lose everything else. 

(Again.)

He watches in horror as the world around him turned to ash. He loses Bucky. He loses Sam. Wakanda loses its king, and Steve another friend. When he returns to the safe house he shares with Sharon, he learns quickly that he has lost her as well.

(Along with the contents of his stomach, as he vomits the moment he finds the kitchen floor covered in ash.)

And then he finds the final punch to his gut: a wrapped present hidden under the bed, his name written in Sharon’s familiar scrawl. He opens it, her last gift to him, and nearly collapses from the weight of its contents — a shirt that reads ‘World Greatest Dad’ and a stick with two dark lines.

 

-/-

 

It makes sense, once he pieces it all together. Sharon had been sick lately. She had kept poking at him about stability, about finding a way to no longer hide in the shadows. When Wanda needed assistance, she had opted not to come along. He had assumed she was still angry at him about their earlier fight. 

She was only trying to protect their family.

And he was unable to protect either of them.

 

-/-

 

He can’t help but wonder if this is fate, to live a life half-lived over and over again, to lose and to lose and to lose until there’s nothing left to give.

He wishes Peggy were here to tell him what to do, just as she’d done when he’d awoken from the ice. But perhaps it is better this way. She won’t have to suffer watching her family be obliterated because he wasn’t enough to save them. 

 

-/-

 

He’s surprised to be invited to Tony and Pepper’s wedding. Less so once he realized that his invitation isn’t out of goodwill and friendship, but for publicity. It’s good optics in this time of tragedy, show the Avengers as a united front. As much as he doesn't want to, Steve goes because it is the right thing to do. 

He wonders how different things might be if Sharon had been by his side. He’s not sure how far along she would have been, but he pretends she might have been showing. He envisions a different world, where they won instead of lost. They’d all be celebrating a victory, a marriage, a child. 

Pepper is radiant in her dress, her smile beautiful as she and Tony exchange vows. Steve can’t help but imagine the type of dress Sharon might have chosen for their wedding day, if they were to ever wed. She could wear a burlap sack and still be stunning. Her beauty in a wedding gown would bring him to his knees. 

Rhodey stands beside Tony, the loyal Best Man. Would Bucky and Sam have been the ones to stand by his side? Undoubtedly. They would have been the ones to tease him as he fretted over a ring, and drag him on a raucous bachelor party, trading barbs and jokes at Steve’s expense. It would have been perfect.

He recognizes how unfair it is, but envy boils in his belly as he watches Tony marry the love of his life, his best friend by his side. He has it all, and Steve has nothing.

No, not nothing. Natasha stays by his side for the whole affair, as if she senses his melancholy. No one is ever truly happy these days, and some days are harder than others. Today feels like a Sisyphean task to overcome. 

“If you want something to smile about, look over at Pepper. She hasn’t taken a sip of her champagne all night,” Natasha says, a conspiratorial whisper in his ear.

“Why would that make me smile?” He wishes terribly that alcohol had an effect on him. He understands all too well why men needs its burn to work through the pain. 

Natasha quirks her head, still grinning that Chesire cat grin of hers. “I guess abstaining from booze wasn’t really a thing in the Ice Age. She’s pregnant.”

Another thing Tony has that he has lost, it seems.

 

-/-

 

That night he dreams of Sharon, glorious in white, in a fight for her life and their child. There is a dagger, blood, and she collapses to the ground. And Steve? He’s falling through time and space, reaching to save her and failing every time. 

 

-/-

 

Steve soldiers on, because it’s the only thing he knows how to do, the only thing he can do. He aids in rebuilding effort. He serves as the public face assuring the citizens of the world that things can get better. He visits England, Wakanda, China, and Australia. When people see him, they don’t see Steve Rogers. They see the shield. He becomes a symbol of progress, of hope. He prefers it this way. 

At home, he paints. He paints Bucky and the Commandos. He paints Peggy mid-laugh, and Sam racing in the Mall, the Lincoln Memorial to his back. He paints Sharon, her hair a crown of gold and fire in her eyes.

He doesn’t paint the baby, unwilling and unable to bring to life someone he had never had the chance to meet. 

 

-/-

 

“What’s going on with you?” Natasha asks him the evening he destroys a punching bag in the gym. 

“Aside from half the population of universe being wiped out of existence? Nothing,” he lies. He thinks this might have been the month he and Sharon’s child would have been born. 

“Yeah, I’m calling bullshit. It’s more than that.” Natasha has always been blunt with him. “What’s going on?”

He’s kept the secret of the baby close to his chest. It’s a secret that’s his, one that belongs to him and not the world. But he also recognizes that he is unraveling at the seams, and each day that passes, rather than build him up, instead chips away at his foundation. 

So he breaks.

He tells her about Sharon being sick and their fights, finding the box and pregnancy test, how every night he closes his eyes he sees the family he could have had, the family he failed to protect. As he speaks, he is reminded of confession. He hasn’t confessed to a priest in decades, no longer the proper Catholic boy his mother raised him to be, but this has to be enough. 

Natasha says nothing in return, does not absolve him in any, just holds him close and allows him to cry. 

 

-/-

 

Scratch that: Natasha does do something in return.

“You have an appointment with Beverly Nguyen this afternoon,” she tells him the next morning. She hands him what looks like a business card. 

“Who?”

“She’s a therapist. A good one, and more importantly, one you can trust,” Natasha explains in her matter-of-fact way. “She helped out a fair number of people back in my S.H.I.E.L.D. days."

He eyes the card carefully, uncertain. “You sure she’s not a bad guy in disguise?”

“Steve.” 

“It’s a concern.”

Natasha grabs his arm, directing his attention to her face. The worry compassion staring back at him isn’t a mask. “Hey, this isn’t the forties. It’s okay to talk to someone. Encouraged, even.”

He waits for her to tell him it’s what Sharon would want him to do. That’s how these things go. He’s guilty of it too, no matter how much he hates hearing it himself. She doesn’t. “If you don’t like her, don’t go. But it’s good to talk to someone not directly in this mess.”

“I’ll consider it,” he replies. It’s not a promise he will go. He’s not sure he’s capable of that. Natasha, thankfully, knows how to quit when she’s ahead and leaves him to his thoughts.

 

-/-

 

He goes.

Dr. Nguyen is nice, patient. She tells him a little about herself by way of introduction — an army brat who saw PTSD take over the lives of far too many families on base. Silently, he appreciates her dedication to serving others.

They don’t actually talk much that first visit. Steve is not fond of making himself vulnerable in front of others — especially those that know him by public persona first. Not to mention, back in his day — both Sharon and Sam would tease him about that terminology often — men didn’t go talk to therapists. They’d grin and bear it, as it were.

It’s the memory of Sam that pushes him to go back a second time. He tells Dr. Nguyen this, and she asks more about Sam. Words start spilling, and he tells her how Sam was the first true friend he made after waking up. 

“He led support groups,” he says. It’s one of the things that made him admire Sam. 

“He sounds like my kind of guy,” Dr. Nguyen says with a laugh, “and more importantly, a good guy.”

“He was.”

And he’s gone.

 

-/-

 

On what would have been his birthday, Natasha shares with Steve her history with Bucky. “James,” she calls him, a certain sort of wistfulness to her voice. She wipes at the tears that slide down her cheeks. Steve thinks this might have been one of the first times he has ever seen her cry. 

They light a candle in his honor.

 

-/-

 

Pepper gives birth to a daughter, Morgan. Tony does not invite him to meet the baby, and Steve is relieved.

 

-/-

 

It takes four sessions with Dr. Nguyen before he tells her about the baby. 

“I never thought a family would be in the cards for me. Even after meeting Sharon, we were on the run,” he confesses. “And then I find out that I was going to be a father...that if I had been stronger, more prepared, they would have lived.”

“You can’t know that.”

“Can’t I?” If he had been stronger, faster, smarter, more prepared. So many ‘what-ifs’, so many variables. 

“No, you can’t.”

He wishes he could believe her. 

 

-/-

 

There is a memorial ceremony held on the anniversary of the Decimation. The Avengers gather in New York. They’re expected to speak. Steve has a speech prepared. He had practiced it in the mirror. Once upon a time, he excelled at off the cuff speeches. Now, he’s unsure if he can make it through the first sentence without breaking down. 

He doesn’t get the chance to find out. Thor, drunk and hurting, slams down a chair and draws the attention of the press. 

“Why are you even here?” The God of Thunder calls out them. “Don’t you see that we failed? That the entire reason we’re having this forsaken memorial is because we couldn’t save them? You should be hating us. Not listening to whatever we have to say. What we say? It doesn’t matter, because we failed them all.”

In a different world, Steve thinks he would have been angry at Thor’s outburst. Instead, he can’t help but feel as if the other man is correct.  

 

-/-

 

Time passes. Some days, Steve thinks the loss is getting easier. Other days, he knows it is not.

 

-/-

 

The memorials that are built in honor of the victims are nice — large, stone pillars with names etched in rows. Visiting these memorials feels like death by a thousand cuts, reminder after reminder of each person he failed. 

Still, he goes. Natasha joins him. Not all of the Avengers do. Tony retires to the forest somewhere. Thor stays huddled in New Asgard. Bruce throws himself into his work.

They’re all trying to find ways to stay alive. He has no idea when any of them will actually feel alive.

 

-/-

 

With the support of Dr. Nguyen, Steve begins to host support groups. It’s all a part of his healing, and it is something that makes him feel effective. If he can help just one person, it’s something. There’s also the non-small part of him that feels as if he’s honoring Sam by picking up his work.

“Because of Thanos, I lost my closest friends, the love of my life, and my unborn child…” It’s the first time he says it out loud, to anyone not Natasha or his therapist. The words feel heavy on his tongue, but he pushes through. He can’t say it feels particularly good or empowering to say, but it’s a success. Progress.

Later, a woman comes up to him, and places her hand on his arm. Steve does his best not to flinch away. “I was pregnant the Snap hit. And then I wasn’t. Today would have been two years since his due date.”

She hugs him, and Steve feels a little more not alone.

 

-/-

 

There’s a non-small part of him, fueled by Natasha, that has Steve convinced that they might someday have the ability to bring everyone back. 

Then another day, week, month, year passes, and with each moment his hope dims.

 

-/-

 

There are those in his support groups who talk about dating again. Years have passed, wounds are healing. New love is providing new hope for a better tomorrow. Light in the darkness. Water in the desert. Whatever bright, shiny metaphors they can think of to describe the happiness of finding a connection with someone who understands. 

Steve gets it. He does. He remembers feeling as if he could never move on from Peggy, only for Sharon to sweep into his life and force him to reconsider everything. So, yes, he does know what it means to find love after never believing you could find it again.

But he’s also not convinced he can do it again. Has no desire to even try. He feels his heart in incapable of moving on. Maybe in another world, another circumstance. But he can’t. Natasha understands this time, or she seems too. He remembers how she would once maneuver and scheme to get him to ask out someone, anyone. She doesn’t do that anymore.

Then again, Sharon had been her friend. Maybe Natasha sees the idea of him moving on as much of a betrayal as he does. 

 

-/-

 

He dreams about Sharon often and in many ways.

He dreams about her tangled in his sheets, her hair a tangled halo around her head.

He dreams about her dressed all in white, a gun pointed toward the Red Skull, fury in her eyes. 

He dreams of her older, wrinkles crinkling at the corner of her eyes as she assures him everything will be okay.

Seeing her face is the best part of his day, and he can only see it when he’s asleep

 

-/-

 

The are whales spotted in the Hudson River, and Steve wonders what Bucky would say about that. He wonders what Bucky would say about a lot of things. About Natasha throwing herself more and more into work, about Carol Danvers and her cool detachment from Earth, about how, in another world, Steve would be the father to a four-year-old child.

He keeps these thoughts from Natasha as they joke about their collective inability to cook. He tries to keep the conversation light, because they’re both still drowning and they need something to laugh about. Anything.

And then Scott Lang appears at the front gate and everything changes.

 

-/-

 

Of course, Tony is the one that needs convincing. Tony, with his beautiful wife and adorable child. No wonder he doesn’t want to risk it all. They’ve been at logger-heads so many times before, and this time both their families are the ones at risk, with Steve’s on the other side. 

He will not back down. (Has he ever?)

“Sharon was pregnant when she...when she dusted,” he implores, “you have to understand why I’m going to do everything possible to get them back. As a father…”

Tony laughs, but it is a mocking sort of thing. “As a father? Tell me what it feels like to be a father when it’s three in the morning, and they’ve been crying all night because she’s sick. Or what about the nightmares? You ever calm your kid down from a nightmare? You weren’t a father. At that point you were a sperm donor.”

The next thing Steve knows, his fist is connecting with Tony’s cheek.

Later, Natasha he overhears Natasha murmur, “Looks like we’re going to figure out the secrets of time travel without Tony Stark. Great.”

Steve thinks he should regret it. He doesn’t.

 

-/-

 

Scott Lang finds him at the compound later. Steve is sitting by the water, watching the sunset. It’s beautiful, something worth painting. Right now, he doesn’t have it in him to try. 

“My daughter, Cassie, she’s a teenager now,” Scott says. He takes a seat. “I missed five years of her life. I missed a lot when I was in jail, and I swore I never would again, and boom. I went into the Quantum Realm, and now half the universe is dead and my kid is a teenager. She has a boyfriend right now. I hadn’t even gotten to the birds and the bees, and now she’s a teenager with a boyfriend. I haven’t met him yet, but Cassie assures me that he’s nice. But isn’t it a ‘Dad Rule’ to hate the new boyfriend?”

“Is there a point to this?” Steve asks. He’s probably being a bit rude, but Scott is still looking at him with stars in his eyes, so he thinks the other man doesn’t care.

“The point is, it’s killing me inside to know I lost five years with her. But, she’s okay, you know? She’s here, doing normal teenager things like getting boyfriends,” Scott explains. “But there are other dads who don’t get to see their kids do normal teenager things, or to see their kid grow up, or even be born. And I know I’d do anything to get Cassie back if our roles were reversed. So I get it and I’m 100% on board with whatever plan you have.”

He’s touched, really, and Steve wonders if it would have done him some good to talk about the baby to others. It’s too late now, so he puts on the best smile he can manage, “Thanks, Scott.”

Scott looks a little bit too proud of himself, like a puppy who has just been given his favorite bone. “I gotta tell ya though. I was going to ask to see if you’d be willing to help out with giving the safe sex talk, because if  _ Captain America _ tells you to be safe, then you have to right? Who can say no to you? But, um, I don’t think so can do that anymore. Because, y’know.”

“My good Catholic tendencies have been greatly exaggerated,” Steve deadpans, but he’s a little bit pleased. Any teasing about his perception of a paragon of virtue and all things good reminds him of the days before the Snap.

“Yeah, it’s like knowing my parents had sex. Too far?”

“Too far.”

 

-/-

 

There’s a part of him that’s shocked when Tony rolls up with plans for a working time machine. The part that’s not knows Tony can’t pass up a challenge. 

He’s sporting a black eye. Steve had pulled his punch, but not that much. Steve braces himself for another argument or one more snide remark when Tony finds him alone. Tony surprises him.

“Some might say that I might have, potentially, crossed a line the last time we saw each other.”

“Is this supposed to be an apology?”

“More like an explanation.” Steve crosses his arms, unsatisfied. “Look. When we lost, your kid was like the size of a peanut, right? But no matter how small that kid was, it was still your kid. You’d do anything for it, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay, so my kid is now a much larger peanut, and one that I’ve loved and watch grow for four years. She loves fruit pops and she’s unreasonably scared of cows, and she’s so damn cute. I didn’t honestly know it was possible to love something or someone so much,” Tony explains. He’s half-pleading, half-gushing. “So now imagine someone sweeping in here and proposing something that could completely put your peanut at risk? And acting, well, like you to do it.” 

“So what are you saying?” Steve asks. It’s not an apology. Not really. But it’s as close to one as Steve is going to get from Tony, he thinks.

“I’m saying I’m going to help you get your kid and everyone else back. But not at the expense of Morgan.”

His first instinct is to call Tony selfish. Steve ignores that instinct, knowing it would make him a hypocrite if he called the other man out. Is this what he would request if their roles were reversed?  _ Yes. _

“Deal.”

  
  


-/-

 

Traveling back in time is an ordeal. 

Seeing Peggy almost makes his heart crack in two. He’s wanted to reach out and tell her everything. Beg her to find Bucky, warn her about Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D., praise her for the inspiration she had been to Sharon, ask her to promise him everything would be okay. But instead he fades back into the shadows, and prays what they’re doing will be enough. 

 

-/-

 

Everyone returns with their stones. 

Clint returns without Natasha.

Steve tries to stay upright despite the unfairness of it all. The only thing keeping him from falling apart (again) is the desire to not let her sacrifice be in vain or forgotten.

 

-/-

 

Bruce snaps and fire rains down from the sky and Steve prays their efforts had been worth it, that they brought everyone back. Sharon, Sam, Bucky, T’Challa...the list of names goes on and on and on.

He wields the hammer. He’ll have to tell Sharon about that. It will only make Sam hate him a little more. It’s the hope of seeing them again that drives him through the fight until—

“On your left.”

 

-/-

  
  


The aftermath is harder than he expected. Natasha and Tony are both gone, and it takes much too long for Steve to get his bearing together and fight through the chaos before he can go find Sharon. Bucky and Sam stay by his side — “to the end of the line,” Bucky tells him with a smile — as they navigate to the safe house where he had last seen Sharon. 

The cabin is empty when he finds her. For one terrifying moment, he thinks something might have gone wrong, that she hadn’t returned like the rest, but then —

“Steve?”

She appears behind him, stepping out of the shadows of the world around them and into the light. She’s an angel, a goddess. Steve runs to her and pulls her into his arms. 

It’s then that he allows himself to weep. 

 

-/-

 

It is only after Tony’s funeral and after he returns the stones that they all gather to honor Natasha.

Between tears, they all trade stories about their favorite missions together. Bucky fills them in on their time spent in Russia, though he clearly leaves some stories out. Steve talks about her strength during the past five years, with Carol Danvers adding more details. Fury mentions how she once shot him, and that was when he knew he needed her on his team.

Alcohol flow freely, and Hill attempts to cajole Sharon into doing shots. It had, apparently, been a thing with them and Natasha after a mission. It’s only when Sharon declines that their unofficial secret comes out.

“It looks like we also have something to celebrate.”

 

-/-

 

Rebuilding the world is no easy task, but the hardships are soothed somewhat by the return of loved ones lost. He leads more focus groups. For once, his experience as a man displaced from time is useful. Five years is not decades, but enough to feel disoriented and lost. Steve feels content to still be useful. 

The first few weeks with Sharon returned are complicated. Conversations that occurred half a decade ago for him seem like yesterday to her. She confesses that she’s afraid he has become a person she barely recognizes. He vows he is still the man she loves (loved?). Like many couples affected by the Decimation, they begin to attend counseling together. It works, he thinks, as they slowly grow back to together. Compounding their problems is a difficult pregnancy, and Steve lays awake at night terrified he may lose his family again.

Sam and Bucky keep him sane. They distract him with their exploits as Captain America and the Winter Soldier. He gives tactical advice from the sidelines. Some days, he itches to be back in the field. As Sharon’s belly grows, he is reminded why he passed on his mantle. 

 

-/-

 

Sam and Bucky argue over who will be the better uncle. Steve is smart enough to stay out of it. 

He’s infinitely grateful his child will have this. 

 

-/-

 

His daughter is born on an August morning. 

She is red-faced and wild, howling until she is placed her mother’s arms. Sharon has never looked more beautiful, sweaty and proud, absolutely glowing. He falls in love with her a little more.

They had already decided on her name, an almost immediate decision once they discovered her sex.

_ Natasha Eleanor _

Steve hesitates on her surname, and it is Sharon who confirms it should be Rogers. “On one condition.”

She waves her left hand. “You gotta put a ring on it.”

 

-/-

 

They don’t have a proper ceremony. 

There’s a judge, but Sharon doesn’t wear a white dress and he’s not in his finest uniform. Bucky and Sam call dibs on serving as witnesses. It’s not the ceremony Steve had imagined all those years ago before the ice, or even the ceremony he’d allowed himself to fantasize about when Sharon walked into his life. 

There are a few key people missing. Natasha would be pretending she wasn’t crying. If Tony were here, he would be making cracks. Steve recalls his jealousy at Tony’s wedding. Now all he wants to do is honor him. 

Once its official and after he and Sharon share their first kiss as husband and wife, Steve sweeps baby Nat back into his arms and presses a kiss on the crown of her head.

To think he almost never had this.

He won’t allow himself to forget. 


End file.
